The Tiruchi Railway Division has embarked on the task of converting 30 passenger compartments into quarantine / isolation coaches in the wake of spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
The conversion works of over 15-year old passenger coaches are under way at the Broad Gauge Coaching complex at Tiruchi Junction and at Villupuram Junction.
The target of converting 30 coaches to serve as quarantine / isolation coaches was fixed by the Railway Board, New Delhi which had given a detailed set of specifications for the conversion works.
Senior railway officials told The Hindu that 20 coaches were being converted as quarantine / isolation coaches at the Broad Gauge coaching complex at Tiruchi Junction and the remaining 10 coaches at Villupuram Junction which comes under the jurisdiction of Tiruchi Railway Division.
Earlier, the Tiruchi Division was allocated 25 coaches for conversion. However, the Railway Board had recently revised the target to 30 coaches for Tiruchi Division alone.
Similarly, the Railway Board had also revised the target in respect of conversion of coaches for other Southern Railway railway divisions – Chennai, Salem, Madurai, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram.
Likewise, the target for conversion of coaches had also been revised for the Golden Rock Railway Workshop at Tiruchi, Loco Works at Perambur and Carriage Works, Perambur in Chennai which were also carrying out the conversion works.
Railway officials here said the conversion works were apace at the Broad Gauge coaching complexes at Tiruchi and Villupuram. Ten out of the total number of 30 coaches had been converted as quarantine / isolation coaches till now and the remaining coaches would be ready before April 8.
A team of railway technical personnel of the Tiruchi Division was involved in the conversion work by taking necessary precautionary measures including personal distancing during its execution. The personnel had been provided with masks and hand sanitisers, a senior railway official said. The Tiruchi Division has taken 10 non-air-conditioned sleeper class coaches and 20 general coaches for conversion.
Some of the modifications made in the coaches as envisaged by the Railway Board include removal of middle berths in each cabin of the sleeper coaches; conversion of an Indian style toilet in the coach into bathroom; providing suitable clamping arrangements for placing two oxygen cylinders on the berth side and fixing two additional foldable type bottle holders for every lower berth.
As per the revised target set by the Railway Board, the Golden Rock Railway Workshop at Tiruchi would convert 130 passenger coaches by carrying out the specified modifications. The Railway Board had revised the target for the Southern Railway zone from 473 coaches to 573 coaches for conversion into quarantine/isolation coaches.
